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Stake/Ward File Sharing Site

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:25 am
by mprusse
I'm attempting to move our stake over to distributing documents electronically. As a bishop I am inundated with paper and have recently made the decision to go all electronic. It has worked well for me.

Rather than continuing to have the stake leadership put paper work in our boxes or hand out piles of paper at stake bishopric meetings, I have been asking them to email me the materials as they become available. But currently I am the exception and don't want to burden them with remembering to email just my materials. However, if they had a central file sharing site to place the documents, leadership could access the materials from there. Different folders on the file sharing site could be secured independently of others for access to various groups or individuals depending upon their leadership calling. However, I don't see this as a place for confidential materials necessarily. Rather, a place for stake calendars, temple schedules, stake statistical reports, etc.

What free options are available to do this? I'm looking for an option that will accommodate this request and also appease those concerned about uploading church materials to third party sites. Again, this wouldn't be for highly confidential materials.

Thank you for your help.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:23 am
by marianomarini
You can use DriveHQ. For security you can cript the downloaded files.
Obviously with a public key.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:52 am
by russellhltn
macsense wrote:What free options are available to do this? I'm looking for an option that will accommodate this request and also appease those concerned about uploading church materials to third party sites. Again, this wouldn't be for highly confidential materials.
You could have them upload to the stake area of LUWS. I think the limit is 1MB per file.

The only way around the third party site concerns is to create your own site. Is that what you are asking?

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:38 am
by marianomarini
DriveHQ is an Inteernet Storage & Sharing Service where you can (up/down)load your file, not only text.
You have to register and then share with other. So It can be register by the Stake and have one directory for each unit.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:24 pm
by mkmurray
RussellHltn wrote:The only way around the third party site concerns is to create your own site.
Sounds third party to me. In reality, anything not on Church-hosted servers is third party.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:49 pm
by RossEvans
mkmurray wrote:Sounds third party to me. In reality, anything not on Church-hosted servers is third party.

I don't understand where there is a policy stating that local leaders absolutely cannot use a "third party server" to communicate with each other. There are well-known restrictions on uploading to third party servers data that was downloaded from church systems such as MLS or LUWS, but that is a more narrow matter.

In addition, the use of email is left up to the judgment of local priesthood leaders, and email uses third party servers. I think most bishoprics regularly use email, including email attachments, to communicate with each other.

As another example, our bishop has adopted Google Docs to share such things as agendas and action items among local leaders. I don't think that is unique. So long as no downloads from church systems are involved, I know of no policy being violated.

Almost all specific question about interpreting policy end up being referred to local priesthood leaders anyway. The original poster above, and the stake authorities he is working with, are local priesthood leaders.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:16 pm
by mkmurray
boomerbubba wrote:I don't understand where there is a policy stating that local leaders absolutely cannot use a "third party server" to communicate with each other. There are well-known restrictions on uploading to third party servers data that was downloaded from church systems such as MLS or LUWS, but that is a more narrow matter.

In addition, the use of email is left up to the judgment of local priesthood leaders, and email uses third party servers. I think most bishoprics regularly use email, including email attachments, to communicate with each other.

As another example, our bishop has adopted Google Docs to share such things as agendas and action items among local leaders. I don't think that is unique. So long as no downloads from church systems are involved, I know of no policy being violated.

Almost all specific question about interpreting policy end up being referred to local priesthood leaders anyway. The original poster above, and the stake authorities he is working with, are local priesthood leaders.
I never said this. You only inferred that's what I said.

My only comment was about the phrase "third-party." You have assumed I was insinuating way more than what was actually said.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 4:29 pm
by RossEvans
mkmurray wrote:I never said this. You only inferred that's what I said.

My only comment was about the phrase "third-party." You have assumed I was insinuating way more than what was actually said.

Sorry, I didn't really mean to attribute anything to you. I just responded to the buzzword, and you happened to be the last commenter to mention "third party." I probably shouldn't have quoted you at all. As a general matter in the forum, it does seem sometimes that any idea involving non-church servers triggers more of a negative reaction than it should.

I think macsense raises some interesting questions. As a purely technical matter, I think he might want to explore Google Documents as a collaborative vehicle. It is not a general-purpose file-sharing service like DriveHQ. But it does allow a robust set of file types including HTML; txt; csv; MS Word, rich text and Open Office documents; Excel and Open Office spreadsheets; PPT; and PDF. Google Calendar is a separate service but has similar collaborative features.

It is when MLS or LUWS export files are involved that these services become problematical for non-technical reasons, as I see it. Personally I refrain from importing LUWS calendars into my own Google Calendar for the same reason I refrain from importing the LUWS membership directoriy into my Gmail contacts. (There, it seems to me that the policy does restrict, which is very frustrating.) But I would send the same content via email for church purposes.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 5:07 pm
by Mikerowaved
boomerbubba wrote:It is when MLS or LUWS export files are involved that these services become problematical for non-technical reasons, as I see it.
I don't want to open another debate on the topic, but the oft quoted document entitled Authorized Church Web Sites from the First Presidency is still listed as active in the Letters and Policies page of the clerk.lds.org website. It seems to imply that 3rd party servers extend to more than just storing data exported from MLS or LUWS.

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 5:45 pm
by RossEvans
Mikerowaved wrote:I don't want to open another debate on the topic, but the oft quoted document entitled Authorized Church Web Sites from the First Presidency is still listed as active in the Letters and Policies page of the clerk.lds.org website. It seems to imply that 3rd party servers extend to more than just storing data exported from MLS or LUWS.

Of course that policy is in effect. Clearly a local unit should not start its own public web site. But that is not what macsense is seeking to do.

BTW, the phrase "third-party server" does not appear in that policy document. The restriction on use of data downloaded from Church systems is covered elsewhere, such as the terms of use of LUWS and narrow guidance provided on this forum.